


The Jackal's Profits

by manic_intent



Series: Empty Houses [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Jim gets everything really, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love, for Sebastian, has always been the more vicious motivator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jackal's Profits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dramatisecho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatisecho/gifts).



> These are just collected and slightly fleshed out fics from my tumblr, inspired by work from [dramatisecho](http://dramatis-echo.tumblr.com). It was getting hard to read tumblr -_-; Check out her tumblr! It has amazing images.
> 
> Example of one of the great MorMor pieces from her tumblr:  
> 

_he said you'd understand_

The American FBI turns out to be somewhat more competent than its British counterpart, and although they check off everything on Moriarty’s list - setting up racketeering rings, advising on drug smuggling, arms trafficking, purchasing Senators, going to Disneyland - the long arm of the law catches up with them in the Big Apple.

Sebastian doesn’t think twice about castling with the king piece; Moriarty escapes unscathed, and Sebastian goes to maximum security. A week into the system, he’s in solitary, having killed three men in the showers and seriously wounded four others. He’s been in better shape than he ever has been, even when he was in the Army, and he used to bare knuckle box for a living, after all - the other inmates hadn’t stood much of a chance. 

The hours tick by towards his indefinite trial date, and Sebastian resigns himself to the waiting game. He isn’t entirely sure whether Moriarty will come for him; they don’t have that many contacts this side of the world, not yet, and pieces on the game board are made to be used. He won’t resent Moriarty if he’s left here, not particularly.

A month and a couple of trips back into solitary and a guard stops by his cell, one night, slips a small white bracelet to him through the opening, mutters a phrase and shuffles away quickly. Sebastian runs the pale white beads through his left thumb and trigger finger, slouched on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. Maybe he smiles. Yes. He understands-

(The bracelet is from Spain, Mardi Gras, when Sebastian was playing bodyguard for the first time, a tiny crown of fake bones, cheap and tacky. Jim had smiled his wide, plastic smile in his terrible Baron Saturday getup and had pickpocketed it from some unsuspecting tourist and had handed it to Sebastian with an ironic flourish, like some morbid favour. It’s the first of many collars, metaphorical and otherwise.)

A trial comes, accelerated, and Sebastian doesn’t remember much of it; he spends it all staring at the sleek, trim figure of Jim Moriarty in the courtroom, dapper in a gray suit and a pale cream tie, playing lawyer to the hilt. His performance is awful but the trial’s a given thing, what with its human jury and its human levers, and Sebastian walks out a free man, somewhat dazed by serendipity.

Moriarty spends the ride to the airport with his eyes closed and singing along to Led Zeppelin, and it’s only when the private jet has taken off that he finally seems to remember Sebastian. ”Careless,” he notes, mildly, eyebrows arched. 

Sebastian nods. He doesn’t add that he would do it again if he had to, act as a decoy, anything, but Moriarty’s smile widens, sharpens, and he unbuckles his seat belt to sidle over onto Sebastian’s thighs, knees tucked over his hips, arms over Sebastian’s shoulders. ”How was the Big House?”

“All right,” Sebastian shrugs. He keeps his hands on the arm rests as though he’s been trained and tries not to squirm when Moriarty shifts closer, until they’re pressed flush together and that sleek, pert arse is pressed tight over Sebastian’s rapidly curious cock. Fuck. Moriarty smirks at this: he’d known all along, after all, the goddamn tease, known how Sebastian gets at the violence that Moriarty wears, at the vicious unpredictability of his temper, at the way he smiles like the lethal edge of a knife.

“You want to fuck me, don’t you, Colonel?” Moriarty whispers into his ear, silky as sin and just as tempting, and Sebastian sucks in a breath and clenches his fingers. ”You’re always watching me.”

Sebastian nods again, shakily this time; there’s no denying it, not with Moriarty. Moriarty chuckles at that, low and harsh, breath tickling Sebastian’s neck, and at the first stinging press of teeth against his skin, he gasps and jerks and curses.

“Shh, shh,” Moriarty murmurs, his smile mocking as he glances up at Sebastian. ”I’ll give you what you want, eventually. After all,” Moriarty continues, tucking his forefinger under Sebastian’s chin, tilting it up to bare all of his neck, “It’s a long flight back home, and I’m going to be _bored_.”

  
_Oh, I insist. After you, my dear._   


The boss probably knows it, but Sebastian always gets vaguely nervous when he smiles like that, wide and secretive, like he’s the only man in the middle of a minefield who knows where the mines are. Sebastian _hates_ it.

They’re in, of all places, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and although the city’s pleasantly warm and the Sheraton Addis is air-conditioned, Sebastian’s just gone twenty-one hours straight in the dust scoping out a route into Somalia, and he’s exhausted, filthy, and more than tired of Islamist militants and their various guerrilla factions. He’s also vaguely surprised that they got out of the situation alive and paid, what with sticking out like bloody sore thumbs throughout the entire crazy business. 

Especially Jim Moriarty, who follows him into the hotel suite still insistently dressed like a banker, all prettied up in Alexander McQueen, dust flecking his pants legs but otherwise immaculate. The welcome mat fails to explode and there aren’t any nasty surprises in the bathroom, the bedroom, or the closets, and Sebastian wearily signals the all clear even as Moriarty strolls over to settle into a couch in front of the flatscreen television set, leaving Sebastian to inspect their luggage for tampering.

Paranoia duly assuaged, Sebastian mutters, “Sir, do you want to use the shower first?” because Moriarty’s fastidious like an old biddy at the worst of times, and Sebastian feels like he’s wearing at least half the countryside’s mud over his skin and boots. 

“No, after you, my dear. I insist.” Moriarty flicks his wrist at him from the couch, and Sebastian shrugs, too tired to argue, grunting as he drags off his boots and strips down on his way to the shower, inking footprints as he does in mud and sand over the carpet and tiles. 

The warm water sifts over him in an almost sensuous pleasure. Sebastian leans heavily against the tiled wall as he scrubs at his skin and scratches caked blood off his palms, drags his fingers through his days-old beard and rubs the flat of his hands over his eyes.

When the door clicks quietly open behind him, he turns, groping for the shower door, his mind instantly triangulating distance to the Glock that he’s left in its holster in the pool of dirty clothes next to the shower, but it’s only the boss, less his jacket and barefoot, smirking as he sidles into the bathroom, tugging out his tie, that crazy, wicked smile cast tight over his lips. Moriarty looks him up and down, idly, then at the heap of clothes with a half-shake of his head.

There’s a small velvet packet in the boss’ hands, and Moriarty unrolls it in the sink: a small bottle and an old fashioned shaving razor, those with blades sharp enough to cut you long before you can feel it. Dimly, Sebastian is aware that he’s stopped breathing, and he exhales in a ragged gasp as he watches Moriarty deliberately fold up his sleeves.

“Let’s clean the rest of you up,” Moriarty purrs, and it starts with the shower turned off, Sebastian kneeling on the tiles with his face upturned, and Moriarty’s never gentle when there’s a blade in his elegant fingers. Sebastian’s sure that he’s bleeding, later, when his beard’s been shaved off and the boss is wiping off the blade, but he’s too tired and too wired high with lust to give it any much thought. 

He waits until Moriarty packs up the razor, then he moans when fingers card through his hair, rubs his cheek against his master’s palm.

“Get to the bed,” Moriarty instructs, nudging his thigh with the tip of his shoe, and he smiles again, wide and plastic and sharp. ”If you’re good, I might let you come today.” 

It's an empty promise - it usually is, when the boss gets like this, high on violence and wired up on cruelty; Sebastian digs his fingers into the sheets and hisses whimpers through clenched teeth as the boss claws fingers into his shoulders and rides him, his dead eyes closed, silent, frowning like he's contemplating some sort of formula, and when the boss comes, it's with a low, harsh gasp. He slips off Sebastian's painfully hard cock and ignores the moan of protest, and when Sebastian whines, despite himself, " _Please_ , boss, _please_ ," he laughs, leans in, and licks a stripe up a scabbing cut on Sebastian's cheek. 

_he just wants to meet you_

The Gerber LHR combat knife in its sheath is really for show; Sebastian is passable with a knife, but he doesn’t have the speed, or the quicksilver deftness of a knife-fighter. Still, guns aren’t allowed in the underground circuit, and the knife’s more of a warning than anything - he won’t need anything more than his fists for this lot, but he isn’t really looking for that sort of trouble. 

Ray “Cueball” Stiltson skulks in a corner of the chambers under the old theatre, sorting bets, and he looks up sharply when the hired muscle beside him huffs and straightens. Sebastian nods at Cueball, thumbs hooked in his knife belt, and the bookie rubs his palm nervously over his shaved scalp. ”Hi, um, Seb.”

“Ray. It’s been a while.”

“You, um, you looking to place a bet?” Cueball asks, going nervously through his ledger. ”The next fight’s in fifteen minutes. I could, I could give you a slip.”

“I was looking to get placed back into the brackets,” Sebastian replies quietly.

“R-really?” 

Sebastian rolls his shoulders into a shrug. ”Could use the money.” It isn’t entirely true; he probably has enough money, right now, to live off the interest for the rest of his life if he’s careful. He could use the _violence_.

“Well, uh, uh I thought you were working for, you know,” Ray coughs, his eyes darting all over the place.

“Didn’t work out.” 

Sebastian had come from a military family, and he had grown up used to order, to discipline. On hindsight, he should have known that getting employed by a textbook sociopath was going to be trying at times, but he suspected that even had he known, Moriarty was probably going to exceed any expectation that he had ever held. And besides, for all the blood that already stained his hands, Sebastian had also been vaguely surprised to learn that deep down in his hunter’s soul, even he had lines in the sand.

“Ah, well, new management.” Ray is blinking again, the way he did whenever he _really_ got nervous. ”You, you might want to go see Bobby. He’s in charge now.”

“Something eating you, Ray?” Sebastian threads a line of deliberate menace into his tone, and checks the distance to the exit with his peripheral vision.

“No, er, no.” Cueball’s the worst liar in the world; when he lies, he turns bright red. That’s probably why his status as the bookie in the establishment has so far survived two management hand-overs.

Sebastian sighs. ”This isn’t about Axe and Johnny, is it?” The previous management had tried to get Sebastian to throw a fight for them, once. When he’d refused, there had been… incidents, which he might not have survived if Moriarty hadn’t decided to intervene. It had been the first time that he’d met his previous employer. 

“No-o,” Ray shakes his head quickly. ”Um. Just talk to Bobby, all right? He runs the show now, Seb.”

“Fine.” Sebastian surveys the chamber and decides that an ambush is probably unlikely; everyone does truly seem to be avidly concentrating on the cage set in the centre, rather than watching him try to shake down the cowardly streak of piss in the corner. 

He nods to Ray and circles over to Bobby, the previous manager of the brackets and now the manager of the whole circuit, pale-skinned and shaved, watching him as he approached. Apparently Bobby had once fought in the circuit, as well, but you couldn’t quite tell from his appearance. No crooked nose, no visible scars, no cauliflower ears.

“Sebastian.” Bobby greets him, when Sebastian walks up to him. ”Been a while.”

“Ray said that I have to talk to you about getting back into the circuit.”

“Ah, about that,” Bobby sighs. ”The answer’s no, Sebastian. I’m sorry.”

“Bobby-“

“It’s been made… very clear to me what would happen if I let you,” Bobby adds, more slowly, and this close, Sebastian could smell sweat, rank fear, for all that Bobby outwardly looks as expressionless as ever. ”And he has a message for you - he just wants to meet you, he said. He said that he’d be at the usual place tonight, at seven.”

Sebastian blinks, rather surprised. Moriarty had accepted his resignation and his explanation with aplomb, earlier this week. Sebastian hadn’t thought that it would have come to anything; or if it would, that it would have come to violence. His successor, looking down at him through a Leica scope, perhaps. Maybe this is it.

“I’m sorry, man.” Bobby continues, in a softer voice.

“Don’t be.”

“You, uh,” Bobby glances around, then he murmurs, “If you need a piece, let me know.”

“I’ve got my own. And Bobby, don’t mention this guy to anyone else.” 

“Sure, sure.” Bobby looks relieved, for a moment, before his expression closes down again. ”Good luck, son.”

Sebastian spends the rest of the afternoon lying on a couch in his SoHo apartment, hands behind his skull, thinking. His hunter’s instincts tell him that he should go and scope out the abandoned apartment block for his successor; any good sniper would set up hours before the scheduled time, and Moriarty would only pick the best. He wonders if it’s anyone that he already knows, out of professional curiosity. In the end, he doesn’t go early, and when he shaves and leaves his apartment, he only takes a H&K USP45CT Compact Tactical in concealed carry, tucked in a shoulder holster with a suppressor in his jacket pockets, just in case.

Moriarty appears to be alone, neat and perfectly dressed in his gray suit, pale hands wrapped around the safety rail of the abandoned building, his smile wide and plastic as he watches Sebastian climb up the stairs towards him. Sebastian nods respectfully at him and stays on the stairs, under the overhang, once he’s within speaking distance.

“Sir. You wanted to see me?”

“You don’t trust me,” Moriarty sighs, in a gentle rebuke. ”That’s hurtful, Seb, it really is. If I wanted to kill you, wouldn’t I have done so already?”

“You told Bobby to cut me loose.”

“Ah, Mister Richards. Cooperative, when you have the right levers. But people generally are,” Moriarty muses. ”Most people have levers. You and I seem to be… rare exceptions.”

 _Because you don’t give a fuck about anything_ , Sebastian thinks, with a vein of surprising venom behind it, _and I don’t have anyone to give a fuck about_. He doesn’t however say anything. Making unwanted observations when the boss was in his current mood - twitchy as fuck and quite possibly packing heat under his tailored suit - usually wasn’t a good life decision.

Moriarty waits anyway, as though expecting something, then he smiles again, wide and doll-like, when Sebastian kept silent. ”I think,” he adds, all stage-whisper, “I think that I need you after all.” 

“You don’t need anyone, boss.” Sebastian points out. ”You never have, have you? You want something done, you’d pull the strings. You want to kill your own staff? You’ll just replace them.”

“Yes, yes,” Moriarty notes impatiently, shoulders hunched, fingers tapping out a staccato on peeling paint. ”But I’m aware of the logical necessity of loyalty. And the concept of waste. More importantly, I don’t seem to be able to kill you.” 

Sebastian arches his eyebrows, but Moriarty was already rambling on. ”Oh, I don’t mean _logistically_. If I put out a hit on you, you’re good, my dear, but you’d be as good as dead. I mean, I didn’t even con _sid_ er the possibility. And that’s unusual.” Moriarty beams at Sebastian, lips a wide, soft curl under his cold stare, and Sebastian has to fight not to shudder. ”And you stopped me from killing Lowery.”

“Not for very long.”

Lowery had only been the goddamn _housekeeper_ , and had apparently been so for the Mayfair house for over twenty years, under different owners. He’d done nothing more than start polishing the apples that Moriarty had bought out of a whim in the morning, and the boss had tried to stab him with the fucking letter opener. Sebastian had calmed Moriarty down and sent Lowery home, and a day or so afterward, read that a certain flat in Hackney had been burned down. He’d resigned, afterwards. The boss’ moods were slowly getting out of control, and Sebastian had figured that he didn’t want to wait to be next. 

“But you did,” Moriarty drawls, and looks _pleased_ at this, “And I didn’t think about trying to kill you for the presumption.” 

“… thank you?” Sebastian tries, doubtful. He’s not sure where Moriarty is heading with this, but the weight of the H&K is comforting.

“The point is,” Moriarty adds wearily, like Sebastian is being slow on purpose, “The organisation is growing rather _large_ , and Mycroft’s people are growing rather _good_ , and I think I’m getting _bored_ of managing everything when I’d rather be having some _fun_.”

“And?” 

“So you’ll be my Chief of Staff,” Moriarty continues, pushing himself away from the rail, “You’ll manage all the boring little details, all the tedious little people, and I can play with the big picture. I’ll try not to kill anyone else who’s useful without a good reason. You were right about Lowery. He was useful. His replacement has been _awful_.” 

Sebastian stared at Moriarty, warily. ”And if I refuse?”

“Why would you refuse?” Moriarty seems genuinely curious, as he slips his palms into his pants pockets and saunters towards him. ”You’ll have no other options. I _will_ make sure of that.” 

He could draw the gun now, Sebastian thinks; draw and slip the safety and fire. Quick double tap in the head, third insurance shot in the chest. By the time someone calls the cops - if any - he’d be long gone. He knows how to move to avoid snipers, and the weather’s blustery today, any drop is going to be tricky.

He doesn’t, however, move, even when Moriarty sidles right up to him and slips his slender hands into his jacket, stroking up his shirt until he reaches the concealed holster. Moriarty hums, as though satisfied with his conclusion, then he twists his fingers in Sebastian’s jacket collar and drags him over for a kiss. 

Moriarty’s a bad kisser, not because of a lack of practice but because Sebastian suspects that the boss simply doesn’t understand tenderness; he bites, uses his teeth too much, and just takes - he’d bleed Sebastian if he could. He usually does. 

It’s always fucking _hot_. 

Moriarty laughs when Sebastian spins them around and pins him against peeling paint; he wraps his arms around Sebastian’s neck and his legs around his waist and forces Sebastian to take his weight as he sinks teeth into Sebastian’s neck, his jaw, and then mauls his lower lip, grinning all the while, the white curve of his teeth blood-flecked. Deliberately, he rolls his hips forward, and Sebastian _moans_.

The boss has lube in his pocket - crazy fucker's planned this all along - and he grins, all sharp teeth, when Sebastian balances him against the wall and pushes a finger into him, curls his skinny fingers into Sebastian's shirt and sinks his teeth into his neck. It's hard enough to sting, Sebastian's probably bleeding, but it just makes his dick throb in his pants, and he takes a moment to consider the distinct possibility that Moriarty's madness is contagious. 

The fuck is messy and rough and the wall's definitely done a number on Moriarty's favourite gray suit, but the mad little bastard merely curls his heels into Sebastian's back and kicks, urging him on, laughing with that manic brittle edge that always makes Sebastian shudder. He thinks about telling the boss to shut up, M16 might show up, after all, someone, but he finds himself burying his lips against Moriarty's neck and groaning like a wounded animal, panting and shoving himself up into slick heat until he's spent.

" _Seb_ ," Moriarty chides, and Sebastian pulls out with a wince and drops to his knees, opening his mouth, fighting his gag reflex as Moriarty just pushes in, rude bastard, thrusts deep and ignores Sebastian's choking and spills bitter and hot over his tongue. He swallows.

Later, when they’ve cleaned up the best that they could and Moriarty is tucking in his shirt, Sebastian asks, “Who do you have on cover duty?”

“No one.” Moriarty tilts his head, as though that would have been obvious. When Sebastian frowns, he has the fucking gall to snicker. ”You wouldn’t kill me, my dear.”

“MI6 could.”

“And you would have been there,” Moriarty adds, carelessly, as though he’s taking it for granted that Sebastian would have tried to rescue him with just the H&K under his arm and a spare magazine in his pocket.

He probably would have.

“It was careless. Sir.”

“No, I don’t think that it was.” Moriarty reaches forward, catches his chin between thumb and forefinger, so proprietary. ”Carelessness was letting you go in the first place.” 

Moriarty pats him mockingly on the cheek when Sebastian blinks at him, then he begins to amble down the stairs, whistling something Sebastian can’t place to himself. He shakes his head, clenching his hands for a moment, then he sighs, and falls into step, thinking forward. Mayfair’s probably in a fucking mess by now.

  


_I warned you - that if she touched you, I'd kill her.  
And you did it anyway._  


Kitty Riley is a pretty young thing, with her china-doll fringe and her schoolgirl pigtails, passionate and easily gulled; she’s Moriarty’s favourite type of prey, the sort that he’d twist around his little finger until there’s nothing left to break. Sebastian knows the sort on sight, and months, years ago, he’d have felt nothing more than a dim sense of professional inevitability, whether the little bleating sheep would turn vicious after the wolf has had its fill. 

Now, however, _now_ \- 

The boss has been reckless where he used to be patient, flamboyant where he once preferred the sidelines; the circling waltz that he’s orchestrating with the private detective is heading towards nowhere good. Sebastian has good instincts, and he knows when something’s going due south on a burning train, and months, years ago, he’d have just started to quietly pack up his things, book some tickets to nowhere, just in case. 

Now, however, now- he’s sitting fakir-style on the carpet, disassembling his bolt-action 50MG McMillan TAC-50, carefully wiping down the chrome-moly steel of the match-grade barrel, and the weight of the gun calms him, focuses him. The boss is preening before the wardrobe mirror, admiring his ridiculous down-and-out actor disguise. There’s a smear of lipstick on his collar like a sweeping thumbprint; it’s the brightest shade of crimson on the boss, compared to the bloodstain splashes over his jeans.

Eventually, Moriarty drawls, “You do realize that you’ve made matters… inconvenient.”

Sebastian doesn’t reply, gritting his teeth as he detaches the stock, wipes it down, then Moriarty makes a ‘hmm?’ sound, and he sighs. ”Yes, sir.” 

“I needed Miss Riley alive for at least the weekend. Now I’ll have to cover up her demise and get her ‘scoop’ published at the same time under her name with no fuss.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Moriarty turns back to the mirror, runs his thumb absently down over his collar, then he smooths down his hair. ”And you could at least have used a rifle. Knives are so very messy.”

“Yes, sir.” Sebastian loves all of his rifles, even the Springfields, but their kills are all impersonal. This one hadn’t been, God help him. It was a kill out of nothing but fury. Miss Riley’s blood had been warm under his palms, the combat knife easing quick under her ribs. 

“Care to explain yourself?”

“I warned you,” Sebastian murmurs quietly, reaching for the cleaning rod, but he hesitates when Moriarty exhales in a sharp hiss of breath, tapping his shoe briefly on the wood panelled floor. ”That if she touched you, I’d kill her. And you did it anyway.”

“Yes, yes, you told me.” Moriarty glances up at the ceiling, then back at the mirror, and from what Sebastian could see of it, the last of Richard Brook’s fumbling persona is gone, replaced by the cold, calculating mask of Jim Moriarty. ”And what did _I_ tell you in return?”

“That you were my master, that my finger might be on the trigger but it would be you who would decide when and where it gets pulled. I heard you. Sir.” Sebastian replies, tonelessly. He has never been afraid of dying, and if Moriarty puts a bullet through his head now, for this first and last act of insubordination, then he supposes it would have been worth it.

“And yet you _dis_ ap _point_ me.” Moriarty shakes his head, and _tsks_. ”Sebastian, Sebastian. I’ve been spoiling you, I really have.”

“The Glock’s over to your left,” Sebastian points out flatly, and reaches for the cleaning rod, this time, inserts a patch through the jib.

Moriarty sucks in another, sharp breath, and closes his eyes briefly. ”You want me to kill you. I won’t. I still need you, Seb,” he croons, and this time his master turns around, the wild edge of his madness in his otherwise flat stare and the thin curve to his mouth. ”I still have plans for you.”

Sebastian hastily sets the rod aside as Moriarty slips onto his lap and folds his arms over his shoulders, but he keeps his palms on the carpet as he’s learned, even when Moriarty purrs and rubs against him. ”Sir-“

His question cuts off as Moriarty bites down, just below his left ear, hard enough to draw blood, and he grits his teeth to swallow his whimper as thumbs dig into the pulse at his neck for a moment. ”But I won’t tolerate disobedience again, Seb. Do you understand me?”

“I understand you, sir,” Sebastian whispers, and moans as Moriarty runs the tip of his tongue with mocking tenderness over the fresh crescent scar. 

_love is a much more vicious motivator_

If Sebastian ever has to say anything in his defence, he’ll note, quietly, that it was never about the money. 

Sebastian starts learning how to hunt people long before he knew how to hunt tigers. (Same principle, really; both species are vicious little buggers when cornered, and they’d often sooner take a claw to your stomach than look at you twice.) He’s a silver-spoon brat with enough hint of a blue blood in his veins to give him an excellent education in books and vice, and when he drops out of Oxford and into the Army he thinks that his mother is relieved. It’s the last he ever sees of her, anyway; some time later he reads of her death in some tabloids in Mumbai and never thinks of his family again.

First he kills because it was what he had been taught, then because he was good at it, one shot, cold shot, one kill, cold blood, and it was never personal, he owed his victims that much. Personal meant sloppy, and Sebastian becomes the best sniper in his regiment, then the best in the bits of Afghanistan that were khaki-themed and striped with stars. When he isn’t on tours, he hunts other game, sometimes with his L115A3 and sometimes with the SIG P226. Money goes into ammunition which goes into money, the grease that keeps his guns from chambering on empty.

The first paid hit that he makes doesn’t go well, and if he’s drummed out of the Army instead of lined up and hanged, it’s probably only because it would have been far more embarrassing for the Army if he’d had a public court-martial. Sebastian learns not to take money from men he doesn’t know in bars he doesn’t remember to kill people whom he doesn’t recognise, and he travels, makes better and better hits, up through China to Mongolia and then back west, where the money gets worse but the employment gets less terminal. By the time he’s back in London again, he’s sold the L115A3 that he’d stolen and the SIG P226 that he’d borrowed and resigned himself to death from enforced retirement. 

And then Sebastian meets Jim Moriarty-

Three Februarys or so after the underground fighting ring, Sebastian slinks back to his SoHo flat, filthy from a full day spent lying crosswise over the stinking roof of an old warehouse, finds two rusted hulks flaking gently on the kitchen table. It takes him a long moment to recognise his old Army friends, ruined forever from poor storage and disuse or whatever the hell that they’d been subjected to in his absence, warped and ugly against the sleek Springfield wrapped up under his arm. He runs his thumb over the magazine of the L115A3, then the cheek piece, and breathes out, ragged and soft. Others who knew Moriarty less could have called it sentiment, but Sebastian knows better. It’s a reminder. 

(He does still go to Mayfair, though, after a shower and a change of clothes, to kneel before his master and close his eyes and open his mouth-)

The money becomes good, and then excellent, and then he loses track of it and leaves it in a string of Swiss Banks, and somewhere, another February along the line Sebastian understands now that more than money, more than bloodlust, he has a better edge now than he has ever had in all of his life, his hands steadier, his instinct sharper. And then a tall, skinny man with dark curls saunters into Sebastian’s life, by collateral, and it becomes personal for the first time and for the last.

Love, in Sebastian’s book, is an empty hotel room miles from anywhere and a bottle of cheap whisky poured over bloodied knuckles; it’s waking up marked _John Doe_ in a hospital bed with a necklace of finger-marked bruises and a pink post-it note with a smiley-face in your pocket; it’s passing the matches to a man who lives to watch the world burn, all the while knowing that he’s standing too close to the fire, yet never saying a word; it’s becoming the agent of a dead man’s will, long after he’s gone, keeping his finger on the trigger and the stock tucked against his shoulder long after the money stops coming.

If Sebastian closes his eyes, he can feel the ridged press of a finger against the arch of his chin-


End file.
